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Blog Response— Watchmen

Alan Moore’s Watchmen is a graphic novel, which was first published by DC comics in 1986. The story follows a group of ex-vigilantes who were popular in the 1940s, but were banned by the 80s after riot broke out. The assigned reading showed the opening of the graphic novel and introduces several of the main characters of the story. Some of the themes in the graphic novel are good vs. evil, people vs. government, heroism, and violence.

Analysis of the Film

The 2009 film adaptation, Watchmen, was directed by Zach Snyder. With only a few minor changes that some of the critics note, the film is loyal to Moore’s graphic novel. It has a dark and violent tone throughout the film. A few of the film’s themes are violence, good vs. evil, and heroism.

Analysis of the Adaptation

While the film adaptation remains very faithful to the graphic novel, there are some problems that appear in the film. The film has many violent scenes compared to the graphic novel. One of the major problems in the film is that there is so much story and no breathing room to think everything over before the next scene comes. The film deeply aims to please Watchmen’s fan base and only changes a few parts of Moore’s graphic novel.

Scott Thill praises Snyder on overcoming the pressure and successfully adapting Watchmen into a film. The film adaptation stay very loyal to the graphic novel and its language. While there are some changes and alteration in the film, it mostly remains faithful to Moore’s graphic novel.

Critical Argument Paragraph

After viewing the “unfilmable” films in our class (Tristram Shandy, Adaptation, A Scanner Darkly, Watchmen), which do you think is the most unfilmable? Why?

After watching several films, the most unfilmable film would be Adaptation because it goes beyond the literary work that it adapted. In the film, Kaufman inserts himself just to show that The Orchid Thief is unfilmable. The film itself confirms that The Orchid Thief is unfilmable because of its narrative. Even though Kaufman tries to stay faithful to the novel, there is more of his story in the film than Orlean’s The Orchid Thief. Although it is a unique way to adapt a film, the literary work almost becomes a side-story as the film’s Kaufman attempts to write the screenplay for the adaptation.